Omaha or bust for UCI 'Superfan' banned from home games

Diehard UCI Anteaters baseball fan Keith Franklin talks about his "Superfan" support for the team during a quieter moment at his Costa Mesa home. Franklin's loud antics and over-the-top enthusiasm have gotten him banned this season from attending games at UCI. EUGENE GARCIA , STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Whether he’ll have tickets to the College World Series to watch his beloved Anteaters in person is another thing. The UC Irvine baseball fan, dubbed “Superfan,” had been banned from attending the school’s home games since being escorted out on Feb. 23 after rushing the field to congratulate the coach on his 1,000th win (he says he did so only after the game was long over, and he followed the rules).

Since then, he has followed the Anteaters to away games and was most recently treated to trips to Oregon and Oklahoma for semi-finals by sympathetic UC Irvine alumni and their families. But he’s encountered challenges along the way. At an away game in Long Beach he said he was told by stadium security that he couldn’t walk or hang out behind the UC Irvine dugout at the head coach’s request.

Franklin and the university disagree on whether his access to away games since the ban has been limited. In Oregon and Oklahoma, Franklin says a change to UC Irvine’s ticket distribution that limited ticket sales to only family of the team – not the usual priority to family, alumni, then fans – left him to rely on getting tickets from a player’s parents or to buy scalped tickets outside, leaving UC Irvine underrepresented fan-wise in the stands. UC Irvine spokeswoman Cathy Lawhon disagreed and said ticket purchases have never been limited to just family members.

While UC Irvine officials have made statements saying they’d be willing to talk with Franklin about playing by certain rules before he’d be allowed to attend home games next season, he has his doubts.

He said he’s willing to do whatever it takes to return to the Irvine stadium, but “I don’t want to keep having my heart broken all the time,” he said. “They took a lot of good memories from me.”

Still, he’s heading to Omaha for the College World Series along with his long hair he’s been growing since making a bet with a player in 2009 that he wouldn’t cut it until they got to Omaha. He says he’s agreed to cut a hair, a single strand. “I really love my hair right now,” it’s become his persona, he said.

UC Irvine plays the University of Texas at noon PST on Saturday.

He’ll be there for the first two games, for sure, but then he’ll have to come back to Orange County. A welding class he can’t miss to get certified starts Tuesday.

He’s been a UC Irvine baseball fan since 2002. With no prior connection to UC Irvine – he didn’t go there, he doesn’t have family there, he didn’t grow up in Irvine – he adopted the team and became its loudest and most ardent cheerleader at games. He says the team adopted him, too, to a certain degree with coaches giving him jerseys and gifts over the years. Often times the loudspeaker announcers would identify him by name – “Superfan” – and encourage him to pump up the crowd.

“The way I am is because of them,” he said of the team and the coaches. “This isn’t a thing where I’m the only one who likes doing this ... it fires up the kids, and that’s all I’ve ever heard.”

The Feb. 23 ban wasn’t his first run-in with the athletics department, he said.

In 2012, he said he was sanctioned for tugging on the net between the field and the stands. It had become his trademark, he said, to grab it and whip it during the games. But this time, security told him to stop. He missed a game and was asked to write apology letters to the two security guards. He said he wrote one, not a second, because the other guard had been aggressive.

He said he came to a mutual understanding over the phone with a UC Irvine official that he wouldn’t tug on the net anymore or rush the field without an invitation from the coach, first. Ever since, he said, he’s felt pressure to behave a certain way, but he says he’s played by the rules and adhered to the agreement, even on Feb. 23.

Lawhon said in an email that she had, “no knowledge of specific behaviors for which Mr. Franklin might have gotten himself into trouble.” As for more information on the 2012 incident, Lawhon said “there is no one available nor willing to start delving into various infractions over the years. They are focused on winning the college world series.”

As for the parameters that might be negotiated for Franklin’s return, Lawhon said those would come later.

“We are focused at this time on our team and its quest for a national championship. Since there are eight months until our next home game, ancillary issues will be addressed later on,” she said in an email.

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Diehard UCI Anteaters baseball fan Keith Franklin talks about his "Superfan" support for the team during a quieter moment at his Costa Mesa home. Franklin's loud antics and over-the-top enthusiasm have gotten him banned this season from attending games at UCI. EUGENE GARCIA , STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
UC Irvine fan Keith Franklin wears a “Superfan” outfit while showing his support at his home in Costa Mesa. EUGENE GARCIA, FILE PHOTO: EUGENE GARCIA, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

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